Customers in regulated industries, such as the financial and healthcare industries, face demanding compliance regulations. Such regulations initially required hardware-based solutions for immutability, where immutability refers to the preservation of data in a guaranteed, tamper-proof manner. Therefore, immutability has been achieved historically by storing a copy of all data in dedicated archiving storage that is inherently designed on Write-Once, Read-Many-based (WORM-based) hardware media. More recently, in recognition of technological progression, many regulated industries have broadened their compliance regulation requirements to include both software and hardware-based solutions for immutability. However, the solutions must not only prevent the overwriting, erasure or alteration of data, but must also be implemented as features that cannot be turned off or removed to remain in compliance.
Hardware-based solutions are still most often used to provide immutability for regulated compliance, but these solutions may be extremely expensive due to the need for specialized hardware and implementation in an isolated environment, which requires specialized expertise, as well as additional security, auditing, retention, and electronic discovery requirements. Additionally, utilizing hard-based solutions, such as WORM-based hardware media, may make it difficult for customers to upgrade and/or migrate their data. Accordingly, methods for providing immutability could be greatly improved through the implementation of preservation policies that, upon enablement, immutably preserve items to prevent the overwriting, erasure, or alteration of data or content within those items, and have the ability to be locked such that the policies cannot be turned off or removed in compliance with the industry regulations.